Throughout my manufacturing career I have dealt with owners, presidents, vice-presidents, managers of purchasing and production, and HR personnel and have learned what constitutes a good employee.  This forum will give me the opportunity to share experiences and provide recommendations for those seeking careers.

Notice I just said careers as opposed to jobs.  When I speak to a class of students I describe the Career Ladder that everyone needs to climb when they leave school.  Just as I did, one would graduate with a degree or two and enter the Ladder halfway up and have a decent salary because hey, we did a lot of work to graduate, we were enthusiastic to work, and our heads were filled with all sorts of modern formulas, statistics, and procedures that employers wanted. But sometimes things don’t go so smoothly.  Financial hardships often cause students to leave school to work.  Sometimes eagerness to work gets in the way of a degree.  Then students are entering the Career Ladder closer to the bottom.  They have neither enough school experience to garner a good wage nor enough hands-on knowledge to make a good salary.  I call these working opportunities “jobs” because they are simply the lowest rungs of the Ladder which often lead to high turnover rates.  More time in a curriculum better prepares students for the rigors and requirements of employment. So it behooves students to resist leaving school and earn their credentials to land that coveted “career.”